


somebody

by karikes



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/M, I'm a sucker for tenderness okay, Romance, character introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 20:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12801708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karikes/pseuds/karikes
Summary: She is a nobody now. No one cares what she does with her free time. Except one Lieutenant Ash Tyler. He might. (He might care. That thought keeps her awake sometimes. Not as much as the lives she is responsible for losing, but still. He might.)An expansion on some of Michael's thought processes in 1x07.





	somebody

**Author's Note:**

> I’m really not one to do this (writing fic for an ongoing series), and especially not with so many other wips in my back pocket, but here I am!! Dipping my toes into Discovery fic!! I started this when I was supposed to be sleeping, but [this gifset](https://karikes.tumblr.com/post/167762035580/discovernow-will-you-lead-please) set me off last night.

“I’ve never been in love,” Michael says and she thinks- she  _ knows _ \- it is a lie, but she tells Stamets anyways, because it’s believable (as if she, the mutineer, will ever be trusted again. Maybe this is why she isn’t trusted, because she chooses to lie about this, when honesty is so easy and she has so many secrets.) and he needs something.

She loved Philippa, despite never telling her. It’s possible her captain knew- but there are many things that are possible and she does not have time to think about them all. She has just never known the joy of loving and being loved in return. That’s what she means. She doesn’t know how to explain that, though, so she says that she has never been in love. It will have to suffice, even if it is an erasure of all the years she spent cataloguing every phrase Philippa uttered.

She does not want Stamets’ soft “I’m sorry,” but she takes it anyways. She knows he means it in only the way someone truly in love can mean it. She is not jealous- just- she does not know what she is. 

Michael is afraid to be loved in return. She will never voice this, but her trepidation comes in her hesitance to even admit to liking Tyler. She does. Like him, that is. It’s terrifying, especially because their relationship is nothing like her and Philippa’s. There is actual potential for something to happen.

She is a nobody now. No one cares what she does with her free time. Except one Lieutenant Ash Tyler. He might. (He might  _ care.  _ That thought keeps her awake sometimes. Not as much as the lives she is responsible for losing, but still. He might.)

When she finally asks him to dance, she feels something without a name. The tenderness and carefulness with which he places his hand in hers and pulls her left hand to his shoulder makes her want to cry somehow. 

She doesn’t. (She wants to rest her head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat; to find some respite in all this pain and unknowing. She doesn’t do that either. There are too many things to worry about right now.)

“Will you lead, please?” she asks, and it  _ means  _ something, her asking. This is not just her trying to get to him in time this loop. This is her relinquishing control. Michael doesn’t like giving up her power, but she  _ wants _ \- she wants to let him lead, to let go of the face she wears every day and just let someone else be in charge of where her body is going for a few minutes.

She thinks about what a nice face Ash has, how his smile makes him even more handsome. It’s really nice. He’s tall too, which is- nice. It’s  _ nice  _ that he’s tall. She likes that.

When Ash spins her around and pulls her against him her knees nearly buckle. He is being romantic. Soft. She likes this too.

It’s almost too much to bear.

There is a way he looks at her and Michael cannot bring herself to look at him back while he looks at her- because he  _ likes  _ her and- and she likes him back.

_ Sad, _ she thinks. She will be sad that they must leave this embrace in  _ four, three _ \- she is sad already. She doesn’t want to forget this. Stamets will probably tell her the big picture stuff later, but he can’t tell her about the way Ash’s hand feels in hers (it’s  _ nice _ and she can’t stop thinking that word, but so few things in Michael Burnham’s life have been nice that she can’t care) or the slight tilt of his head as he looks at her.

Michael had reintroduced herself for a reason. If that reason was because she had passed out the last time she shook his hand, or because she felt the need to see his smile, she is unsure. She thinks it is both. It would be logical to assume only the first answer- to be more sure of her actions. 

She is unsure of what to do around Lt. Ash Tyler. She is not his commanding officer. She could be- she could be anything to him. She wants to be  _ something  _ to him.

Michael almost wants to ask him  _ Am I  _ something _ to you? _ But she does not. Instead she savors the warmth of his hands and the way his face looks when he is happy.

Because he is. He is happy- happy to be with her and happy to dance with her and maybe just happy to look at her. Maybe all of those things. She hopes he is happy about all of those things.

She knows what he feels like- or at least she thinks she does. It’s all so confusing without the mask of command to hide behind.

Michael remembers to tell Ash that much later- or before, she doesn’t know. 

(It’s not like she’s not perfectly capable of comprehending the science behind what Mudd put them through, it's only that she’s  _ tired, _ and she can’t be bothered about where exactly they are in time right now compared to where they were all those times. And the  _ tired _ Michael has felt in the last year of her life has stripped her bones of flesh and her heart of tenderness. Not all of it, she hopes, but enough. She is too tired to calculate that either.) 

He smiles at her (again. It is again. Everything they will do will be again, and Michael cannot even remember the first time.) and says he is sad. Or maybe he is sorry. She can’t think exactly right when it comes to words and Ash Tyler. 

“Because I missed our first kiss,” he says.

_ I’m sad too, _ Michael does not say, but she knows. She hopes he knows that she knows, because she isn’t good at this. 

That’s a lie. 

She’s downright terrible at this. 

She doesn’t want to be. 


End file.
